Hint：「好きな（嫌いな)野菜ランキング(ranking)」でどちらの上位にも入るこの野菜、実は身体にすごくいいそうですが、さてどのように摂取するとどのようにいいのでしょう？
The familiar tomato is showing up in all sorts of unusual guises. Tomatoes have become main ingredients for full-course lunches, they are being whipped into cakes, boiled down to jams and served with ice cream. Plus, the cheery red food leaves you in the pink.
According to the Kagome Research Institute, the red carotenoid pigment in tomatoes called lycopene helps reduce the risk of cancer, hardening of the arteries and other diseases. Lycopene also has an anti-aging effect and a whitening effect on the skin.
Cooked in oil, lycopene can be easily absorbed into the body. The rate at which lycopene in tomato paste enters the bloodstream is three times that of fresh tomatoes. That is because tomatoes' cell walls, which shield nutrients, are destroyed when tomatoes are mashed.
Shops all over Tokyo are serving up the juicy, sourish fruit--botanically a berry--in healthy new ways.
Healthy sweets
Patisserie Potager (03-6279-7753, a 5-minute walk from Naka-Meguro subway station), an organic-vegetable cake shop that opened in April, offers 22 types of colorful cakes.
Ingredients include old favorites such as pumpkin and sweet potato but also paprika and arugula, rarely found in sweets.
Tomatoes appear in three of the shop's products: Green Short Tomato (420 yen), Rose Hip and Tomato Jelly (420 yen) and Mont Blanc (493 yen), made with tomato jam.
"Like strawberries, the sour taste of tomatoes works well in cakes," shop owner Aya Kakisawa, 29, says.
Three years ago, Kakisawa opened a cafe restaurant in Utsunomiya that uses organic fruits and vegetables grown on farms in Tochigi Prefecture. The vegetable desserts proved so popular that Kakisawa decided to open a store specializing in vegetable cakes.
"We tell customers where the items are grown and we actually show them the fields," Kakisawa said.
According to the shop owner, the secret to keeping the natural taste of vegetables in desserts is to avoid overprocessing.
Kakisawa devises her own recipes. She is currently working on new desserts that feature eggplant and onions.
Patisserie Potager is open daily 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Full-course tomato menu
Celeb de Tomato (03-5766-3005, an 8-minute walk from Omotesando subway station) is a restaurant offering a full course of dishes--appetizers, soups, entrees and desserts--all made with tomatoes. The restaurant is especially popular with women.
Different kinds of tomatoes are used for soups, salads and sauces, resulting in a menu filled with unique dishes. For example, the tomato salad features whole tomatoes ripened for an extra week at a controlled temperature. Grilled pork is served with a honey-mustard sauce containing tomatoes. Tomato brulee is a grilled tomato coated with caramel and served with vanilla ice cream. Its taste is fresh and sweet.
The restaurant purchases tomatoes directly from growers.
Hirotaka Yoshimoto, general manager of the restaurant, is also an agricultural consultant involved with opening vegetable stands.
"If a fruit and vegetable stand sells good tomatoes, then you know its other items will also taste great," Yoshimoto says.
Yoshimoto insists that tomatoes be sweet and juicy. He says sweet, juicy tomatoes go especially well with olive oil and vinegar but adds that numerous other preparation methods are available. That thinking inspires his menu.
"I want to suggest new recipes that impress and excite my customers," he says.
Celeb de Tomato is open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Closed Sundays.
